Hamas: Give Us West Bank So We Can Destroy Israel

(Gatestone Institute) If the West Bank had one quarter of the weapons that the Gaza Strip has, Israel would be eliminated in one day. This is what Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar told worshippers during a sermon he delivered on September 5.

Zahar, who, during Israel's Operation Protective Edge, spent his time in hiding, was speaking during Friday prayers at Martyr Abdullah Azzam Mosque in Gaza City.

Abdullah Azzam, by the way, was a Palestinian "scholar," teacher and mentor of Osama bin Laden, the slain leader of Al-Qaeda. Azzam was killed in Pakistan in 1989.

Back to Zahar, who delivered his first sermon since the Egypt-brokered cease-fire between Hamas and Israel was announced in late August: he chose to remind Palestinians and the rest of the world of his movement's dream to destroy Israel.

"If only the West Bank had one quarter of what Gaza has of resistance tools, the Israeli entity would end in one day," Zahar declared, reiterating the claim that Hamas had scored a "big victory" in the war.

The Hamas leader went on to criticize those who still have doubts as to whether Israel could be destroyed.

"Those who were skeptical as to whether Palestine could be liberated are no longer doubtful after the enemy was hit from the Gaza Strip," Zahar said. "Can you imagine what would happen if the enemy is targeted from the West Bank, which makes up 20% of the size of Palestine?"

Zahar's wish to see the West Bank flooded with rockets and mortars and other "tools of resistance" was echoed by other Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders and spokesmen after the recent war in the Gaza Strip.

Zahar himself was quoted recently as saying that Hamas's goal now was to "move the Gaza example of resistance" to the West Bank.

Even the Iranians seem to think that the time has come to turn the West Bank into a launching pad for attacks on Israel.

During the war in the Gaza Strip, a senior Iranian commander of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, Mohamed Reza Naqdi, announced that Tehran had plans to "arm Palestinians in the West Bank" in order to destroy Israel.

Naqdi boasted that the weapons used by Hamas and other Palestinian groups during the recent war had been manufactured and supplied by Iran.

More...